Inmate Beatings Decrease, but Continue, at Rikers

By MATTHEW PURDY

Published: March 1, 1997

In the year since city officials took major steps to stem the abuse of inmates by correction officers in the punitive segregation unit of Rikers Island, the use of force by officers in the city's toughest jail has steadily declined, according to Correction Department statistics.

But exceptions to that trend -- including an incident in which an officer was seen by a superior kicking a handcuffed inmate in the head, and new evidence of orchestrated ''hits'' on inmates -- raise questions in the minds of prison advocates whether the situation has been completely alleviated.

Last March, the city opened a new Central Punitive Segregation Unit to house inmates who commit infractions while in jail, staffing it with a new force of freshly trained officers and instituting a series of measures aimed at cutting down on opportunities for confrontation between officers and the 450 inmates. In some of the last few months, there have been a dozen or fewer incidents of the use of force by correction officers, compared with two to three times that number a year ago, the statistics show.

Violence by inmates has also declined, the figures show.

In January, in a further attempt to control the jail area, correction officials hired Keith Wilson, an assistant district attorney in the Bronx who was prosecuting officers charged with beating inmates, and put him in charge of a 16-member force that investigates abuse complaints in the area of the jails commonly known as the Bing.

''We want to make a very clear break from what the past allegations are,'' said Michael P. Jacobson, the Commissioner of Correction. ''I think it shows we are taking this seriously.''

Pressure has been brought on the city to take these steps. A class action lawsuit by the Legal Aid Society is asking a Federal judge to order the city to improve the training and supervising of officers in the Bing and to better investigate allegations of abuse by officers.

The Giuliani administration, which has taken action to erase court orders and consent decrees governing the operation of city jails, is anxious to avoid a court order in the punitive segregation case.

Jonathan S. Chasan, the lawyer directing the Legal Aid suit, said he was encouraged by the hiring of Mr. Wilson, but added that the Correction Department ''has a history of false beginnings and broken promises.'' He added, ''If he is given sufficient resources and political support, there is at least the hope that inmates will be safer there than they have been.''

The cases have cost the city dearly. In February 1996, the city agreed to pay $1.6 million to 15 inmates named in the Legal Aid lawsuit who said they were beaten between 1990 and 1992. In recent months, the city has paid settlements ranging up to $100,000 to inmates who said they were beaten while being held in the punitive segregation area.

The city is likely to face more claims of abuse by inmates as details emerge in the criminal prosecution of 11 correction officers in the Bronx who were indicted in October on abuse charges that included beating shackled inmates and then lying on reports by saying the inmates had attacked them.

The most graphic illustration of the culture of abuse that existed in the Bing emerged at the Federal court trial of Roger Johnson, who was convicted of conspiracy in November related to the December 1992 beating of an inmate being held in the punitive segregation unit.

At the trial, the jury heard tapes of officers talking like gangsters about beating up an inmate after a captain told them: ''I want him demolished.'' There was evidence of officers rubbing carbon paper on themselves and hitting each other to make it look as if they had been bruised by inmates.

According to testimony in the trial, the December 1992 attack on the inmate, Hector Batista, was ordered because of concern that he would try to incite other inmates to cause trouble. ''We were still kicking and stomping and hitting,'' Officer Johnson recounted to other officers on a tape secretly recorded in August 1994.

When confronted with the tape, Officer Johnson at first cooperated with investigators. According to testimony at the trial from investigators, Officer Johnson said that after the beating, he was told by a captain to write a report saying the inmate had attacked officers with a homemade knife, which he said was not true. Officer Johnson also told investigators that he had another officer hit him in the face and that he also hit himself in the face to make it look as if he had been hit by the inmate.

''Officer Johnson struck himself in the face to show injury,'' Michael Caruso, assistant commissioner of the Department of Investigation, testified at the trial.

But after giving statements to investigators, Officer Johnson stopped cooperating, and his lawyer, Maurice Sercarz, argued at his trial that he made false statements to the investigators because he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder from ''the hundreds of tours, the thousands of hours in this hell hole,'' referring to the Bing.

Working as an officer in the Bing, guarding inmates who have not only committed crimes on the outside but who have also broken jail rules, often violently, is brutal duty.

Union officials are enraged at the department's decision to hire someone specifically to investigate the conduct of officers in the Bing, especially since he is a prosecutor who had charged officers with abuse.

''This guy has been part of the system that has condemned officers from the word go,'' said Norman Seabrook, the president of the Correction Officers Benevolent Association. ''What you're saying is that the Corrections Department cannot police itself.''

Both Mr. Seabrook and correction officials agree that the new punitive segregation area, housed at the Otis Bantum Correctional Center, one of the 10 jails on Rikers Island, is safer for both officers and inmates. Movement of inmates is severely restricted, officers in many cases now use pepper spray rather than force to subdue inmates, and the area is ringed with cameras to record interactions between officers and inmates.

But Mr. Chasan said allegations of abuse, while diminished, were still troubling. ''A number of inmates have been struck, while in handcuffs, out of camera range and have suffered wounds to the head and face,'' he said, adding that the department had recently installed more cameras.

And in May, a jail official reported that an officer was seen dragging a handcuffed inmate on the floor while another officer kicked at his head. The incident, which the official reported happened in the presence of a captain, is under investigation, according to Thomas Antenen, a department spokesman.

Even with all the new safeguards, ''it's a really tough jail; it's a tough place to work,'' said Mr. Jacobson. ''I'm not going to sit here and say nothing's going to happen again.''